Tim Tebow, now a Broncos rookie quarterback, hugs his mom, Pam, in the ad Focus on the Family aired during the Super Bowl. Focus officials said the response to the ad, and a good deal from CBS, led the nonprofit to buy TV ads to air during Broncos games.

Focus on the Family denies that the crossover appeal of religious rookie quarterback Tim Tebow is the sole reason the conservative Christian ministry has, for the first time, bought statewide TV ads to air during Denver Broncos games.

But it didn’t hurt.

The Colorado Springs-based family-counseling ministry said it got a good package deal with Colorado CBS affiliates, including Denver’s KCNC-Channel 4, on ads that will run during more than a dozen games, beginning with this weekend’s preseason game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Focus on the Family bought a Super Bowl ad featuring Tebow and liked the results.

“We saw from our Super Bowl advertising experience that, for a family-help organization like ours, football is a perfect place to advertise,” Focus vice president Gary Schneeberger said. “The Broncos are a real family tradition here on the Front Range.”

The Broncos’ signing of Tebow, the son of Christian missionaries and openly evangelical himself, has electrified many Broncos fans and even won the team some converts.

“When he was drafted by the Broncos, we were thrilled,” Schneeberger said. “We had a great experience working with him and his family on the Super Bowl ad. We know what he stands for. We like the guy.”

Focus officials said that ad, which featured Tebow playfully tackling his mother, led to millions of extra hits on its website.

Speculation and criticism about the supposed anti-abortion nature of the ad was rampant before it aired. The spot turned out to be an innocuous message about family ties.

Schneeberger wouldn’t disclose the price of the new ads but said costs will be covered by donations made explicitly for this project.

The ads are a logical extension of the Focus campaign to raise brand awareness among a new generation of young families that began with the Tebow ad, Schneeberger said.

He wouldn’t disclose specifics about the new campaign, except to say the ads won’t feature Tebow.

“They’re not political ads. They’re not religious ads,” Schneeberger said. “They will make people aware of the services Focus offers to help families thrive. They will make statements on social values and touch on the sanctity of life, but it would be a leap to say the ads will address family issues from a controversial standpoint.”

In recent years, Focus on the Family has struggled with dwindling donations. The reductions have forced the nonprofit to halve its workforce to 750 since 2002. The most recent layoffs, July 30, affected 110 workers.

Financial challenges don’t mean you stop advertising, Schneeberger said, adding that every company from Nike to Wal-Mart has laid people off.

Last month, Denver’s Department of Safety fired a deputy sheriff for using racial slurs and harassing inmates and a police sergeant for drinking while in uniform and abandoning a post to have sex with a woman.

A wedding and special events’ planning business has agreed to pay a $200,000 settlement to five employees living in the country illegally after allegedly failing to pay them minimum wages and overtime and discriminating against them because of their race.